Marriage services to be offered at Home Affairs under Level 3 lockdown

There is a glimmer of hope for those who want to enter into matrimony.

There’s hope for those who want to get married under lockdown as Home Affairs has proposed that marriages be offered as a service during Level 3.

A picture-perfect day for any couple, but a wedding day that remains a pipe dream for many during this lockdown.

In Cape Town, Caileigh Van der Linde and Michael Grigoriadis were set to tie the knot, but the lockdown haltered those plans. Van der Linde says she was disappointed by the events.

“I was obviously disappointed in the beginning and I was in denial about it and I told myself we are not going to postpone unless we have to. And then the time came and we actually had to postpone. I’m numb at the moment and there is nothing we can do. We have to accept it.”

Grigoriadis says they are disappointed as their wedding was due to have a lot of guests.

“It’s been very difficult because we had a lot of guests from out of the country; Johannesburg and Cape Town. It was sort of a destination wedding we were organising, because everyone had to travel and there’s a lot of planning for people that come from the United States and come from all parts of the world to be here. So, everything has just been put on hold and there is nothing we can do.”

In Oudtshoorn, Amber and Dwight Wicomb luckily got married just days before the lockdown kicked in. However, they had to scale down on their guest list – a decision that was a tad difficult.

Amber says they had to look at the people that were closer to them.

“What we had to look at, who are the people we have a closer relationship with. So, that’s why we had to cancel out and say ‘this one is not going to get an invite and this one is getting one.’ Although we obviously did feel bad that we had to take people off, but that is how we managed to then decide, ‘ok, this is our close people we really want there.’”

Dwight says they had to cut from 130 invited guests to 90.

“Initially, we had 130 people we had invited and we had to cut it down to 90. I would have wanted all those people to be there because all of them played a role in our lives, but we couldn’t. But the most important thing for us was to get married.”

The lockdown has also put a damper on business owners in the wedding industry.

Gareth Duncan of GD Industries says he is fortunate as he has other income channels.

“With my clients, there are still a lot of unknowns and it’s rent and supplies that I have ordered already. But I am in a fortunate position where I have other income channels, but I am obviously thinking of those who don’t have, who solely depend on the wedding industry business.”

However, there’s a glimmer of hope for those who want to enter into matrimony.

For couples like Caileigh and Michael, their wedding bells could still toll and without the stress of guests having to RSVP.

In the video below, Home Affairs says it has proposed that marriages be offered as a service during lockdown Level 3:

This entry was posted on 22 May 2020,09:23PM at 9:23 PM and is filed under Coronavirus, Lifestyle.
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